Report Two

CONFESSION OF A WASHINGTON STATE SUPREME COURT JUDGE

In 1998, I spoke with a healthcare professional who related
the following story of a judge he happened to meet one
day in Seattle, Washington.

In May 1984, a Washington State Supreme Court Justice, who was in the last stages of a terminal condition, decided to visit a doctor whose sign he had noticed while passing in his car. The doctor’s sign was strange to the judge because it displayed a title that was unfamiliar to him. The doctor was a naturopathic physician. The judge’s curiosity was peaked, so he decided to inquire into the nature of the practice in which the doctor engaged. After a few minutes of discussion with the doctor, who had started his practice just a few months before, it became evident that there was nothing of value that the doctor could do for the judge. The young doctor felt badly and apologized for having to disappoint the sick man who had expressed an interest in his methods and philosophy. To the surprise of the doctor, the judge remarked, “Don’t apologize! You have done more for me than you will ever know. You have told me the truth even though the thought may have entered your mind to take advantage of me because of my desperate condition.”

The judge went on further, “I perceive you are a seeker of truth.” He then inquired, “Have you ever heard of Diogenes?” Diogenes was the ancient Greek philosopher and teacher. Towards the end of his life, he went about naked, sitting in a tub as it was carried about at night by his students, from town to town. As the sage was thus conveyed, he held forth a lantern. When questioned by a curious bystander as to the purpose of this gesture, Diogenes replied, “I am looking for an honest man.” The judge seemed happy that the doctor knew the story of Diogenes.

The judge said, “You told me the truth in a straightforward manner, and you never have to contradict yourself or prevaricate when you follow that course. I have finally met an honest man!” Then the judge made a curious statement. He said, “You have done something for me; now I would like to return the favor.” He immediately inquired as to why the doctor had obtained various licenses, particularly, a driver’s license. The doctor, somewhat perplexed by this, advanced the best answer he could muster, saying, “Because I want to be a law abiding citizen.”

The judge responded in a manner that shocked the young doctor by retorting, “It does not have anything to do with the law, and I really doubt that your citizenship has anything to do with it either. Don’t you have the Right to travel as you please, and where you please, for your own private purposes and pleasure?” The doctor thought for a moment and agreed.

Another question came quickly, “Well, why then do you have a driver’s license?” The judge went on to explain that a license to drive was required only if one desired to engage in some sort of privileged, commercial activity which required the use of the public roads and highways. He said that not only would the commercial driver then need a license, but the vehicle would also need to be registered with the State, since he would be operating a vehicle for commercial purposes.

The judge went on to explain that the legal reasoning behind the policy of requiring everybody to obtain a driver’s license operating a car on the road was an attempt to obtain some degree of accountability, and to insure that incompetent people did not go out on the roads and cause accidents. He indicated that the State has a legitimate need to provide for the safety and welfare of the people within its boundaries. However, state governments faced a peculiar problem, because the state constitutions never evidenced a power granted to the state, by the People, to allow that government to directly control the peoples’ private lives. In addition, the state government could not compel the Citizens to enter into any kind of a commercial agreement or contract with the government.

The Judge stated, “the government was established to protect the people in the enjoyment of their Rights, not to compete with them in the marketplace.” However, to overcome this obstacle, our “public servants” devised methods by which they could induce the people into approaching them, voluntarily, seeking a privilege – a privilege which belonged within the legitimate realm of the government’s absolute jurisdiction.

Over the next decades, the commercial driver’s license, (which had been previously limited to commercial drivers of horse drawn carriages, wagons, etc.), was extended to include virtually all people operating any automobile. The system was promoted as “the proper thing to do” to enhance safety on the roads, and the people bought it. Now the state could dictate to its official agents, (the drivers), how they should conduct themselves.

With the growing number of vehicles on the roads, the States soon perceived that they were looking at a pretty lucrative business opportunity. As long as the People were inhabiting or in other words, “residing” within the state’s corporate venue, the sky was the limit. This change of venue was accomplished by the voluntary application for the privilege of engaging in the official state business of “driving.”

The judge again pointed out to the surprised doctor (now pupil) that the Law protected the right to travel, along with all other Rights and Immunities. In fact, he said that our basic, inherent Rights were equivalent to Immunities; this fact meant nothing more than that the government was barred from controlling such rights.

However, the strategy of the states has been extended to such a degree now that it involves almost every aspect of our once private lives. We have lost almost all of our status as private Citizens, because we have voluntarily applied for so many different licenses-all of which have been created to lock us into privileged commercial activities.

The judge asked the doctor if he knew that it was unlawful for the state or federal government to coerce a private Citizen into applying for a license in order to perform an act that in fact the Citizen had the right to engage in before obtaining a license. The doctor replied that the judge’s theory made sense.

The judge said that many of the so-called patriots that he had heard of or dealt with apparently thought that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was the root of all of the difficulties they were having in maintaining their various causes in the courts. This amendment certainly played some role in the difficulties that bothered the patriotic groups, but in reality, the amendment was not, in and of itself, totally responsible for the loss of the liberties of the Citizenry. The judge explained that the Fourteenth was never intended to affect the rights of the Citizenry at all. Actually, the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to provide a means for the federal government to project its municipal power beyond the boundaries of Washington D.C.

Next, the judge explained that Congress focused on the title of “citizen of the United States,” as a way of using the federal Constitution as a tool for standardizing individual standing before the law. This particular title appeared in the first paragraph of the Fourteenth Amendment. The term “citizen of the United States” though mentioned in the national Constitution was not defined there, nor had it been defined by the Supreme Court directly.

The key to interpreting the true scope and effect of the Fourteenth Amendment was to perceive the meaning of the word “persons” used in it. This amendment specifically overturned the Dred v Scot decision, in effect, by declaring all “persons” who were “born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the ‘jurisdiction’ thereof” were citizens of the United States and of the states wherein they resided. The amendment provided a means for Congress to protect the interests of all citizens of the United States through controlling the states as to their interactions with all citizens.

The use of the term, “jurisdiction,” could only be understood as it related to international law, meaning “amenable to the general laws of that nation, allegiance thereto and eligible for protection under its laws.” The judge felt the language of the Fourteenth Amendment could have been better and that there were well documented irregularities attendant to its adoption.

The judge then commented that the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment effectively ended common law in the nation, because it prohibited the enforcement of the civil penalties for which the common law provided. No servitude (in other words, no redress to the victim which would restore him to his original economic status), could be enforced outside of conviction for criminal offenses. Now a damaged party could not get the trespasser to work off the damage he had done, even after a jury order. Redress was limited to monetary compensation, accomplished by seizure of the defendant’s assets.

The judge went on to say that since the 1930’s, government has ceased to function under traditional perimeters of law and equity; in fact, common law had basically ceased to be the foundation for federal procedure, beginning at about the turn of the century.

Now administrative regulations control the process in virtually all of the courts of the land. This transformation happened because our representatives and senators had so destroyed the country financially in the 1930’s, that neither common law nor equity could be obtained through the courts. Courts are now functioning under the brooding presence of emergency policy, dictated by the executive branch of the federal government.

Judges are not in court to protect the rights of the private individual; instead, they are there to trick that person out of their rights. Judges accomplish this by getting defendants to engage “the big Spook,” as he called it. In other words, defendants unwittingly join issue with a legal fiction. He then declared, that judges today view all parties as effectively “bankrupt and without standing before organic law.” Usually the private citizen is intimidated into answering accusations in ways which traverse a claim and join issue before the court. At that point, the judge is established as a de facto officer.

In common law, if the accuser cannot appear in flesh and blood, there is no accuser at law. If there is no accuser, there is no case. If no corpus delicti can be produced, there is no crime at common law. It is the right of every citizen and private person to have due process at legitimate law where issues involving their liberties and properties are involved.

Whenever a civil action is undertaken nowadays, there must be a commercial connection with the government. All of the various licenses, permits, and certifications issued by government agencies are prima facie evidence that a private party is legally connected with commercial activity over which the government (almost always federal) has asserted regulatory control (usurped the field). The judge said that even the birth certificate was essentially a commercial document.

All of the courts in the United States, and internationally, are operating in a commercial venue, by treaty or otherwise. When a person appears before these courts, “he is basically viewed as an incompetent and a bankrupt by virtue of his status as an individual surety for the national debt. Therefore, his rights become subservient to the administration of “public policy” which is designed to serve the needs of the many, at the expense of the few. This is the spirit of the new ‘equity’ jurisdiction asserted in the courts.”

The Judge then asked the doctor if he had a Social Security number. The Judge commented that he and some of his colleagues were studying social security and welfare legislation and felt that the enactments were the turning point in this loss of liberty. He suspected the Social Security number was the lynch-pin in transforming the private citizen into an article of commerce subject to congressional control. How this was accomplished, he did not know, but was hopeful he would live along enough to discover the legal mechanism behind this conversion.

In closing, the judge lamented that when he entered the legal profession it was “the king of professions. Now it’s a whorehouse.”